01. Invocation02. Called By The Fire03. Citizen04. Homecoming [feat. Kristoffer Rygg and Tore Ylwizaker]05. Astera Ton Proinon06. Panem Et Circenses07. And He Shall Walk In Empty Places08. Will You Love Me Now?09. The Pain Is Still Mine

This is not the worst album I've heard this year but it's pretty far from being the best either. Ihsahn, for all that the black metal genre owes him, is still very much guilty of one of the most common sins in metal music - utter pretentiousness.

There is a clear sense of lack of direction on Adversary. Musically, this album is quite similar to Emperor's swan song Prometheus and includes the same mix of black metal and heavy metal with progressive leanings. There are actually heaps of ideas floating around on this album. The problem is that they seem to be there just for the sake of being there, as if Ihsahn simply wanted to use every melody and arrangement that popped into his mind without paying any attention as to how their juxtaposition affects the flow of the songs and the whole album in general. There are some particularly good parts here, most notably the progressive sections of "Homecoming" or the vicious black metal attack in the beginning of "Citizen"; however, we can't really appreciate them since we are constantly being distracted. The fairly amateurish production of this album doesn't help matters either. Adversary is more like a thrill ride with cheap gimmicks than a journey that actually takes us anywhere.

Good album, but it this album to me is more classical sounding that anything else. Not that thats a bad thing as such, but some of the songs on here really do bore me to death(Astra Ton Proinon, And he shall walk in empty places, Citizen). Needless to say,the other seven are pretty good work!

Hard to believe such great albums followed this one. Maybe Ihsahn wasn't experienced enough at the time to release a quality product or he should have called Jens Bogren to handle the mixing earlier. And that is regarding the production only, most songs lack a bit of direction as well.